When it came to light that Microsoft was planning to remove the Start button from Windows for good, many ardent fans of its functionality were unhappy. Now, Microsoft has explained why it made the choice to ditch the button, which has graced PC desktops for over 17 years.

"We'd seen the trend in Windows 7. When we evolved the taskbar we saw awesome adoption of pinning [applications] on the taskbar. We are seeing people pin like crazy. And so we saw the Start menu usage dramatically dropping, and that gave us an option...

"So I'm a desktop user, I pin the browser, Explorer, whatever my apps are. I don't go the Start menu as often. If you're going to the Start screen now, we're going to unlock a whole new set of scenarios, or you can choose not to go there, stay in the desktop, and it's still fast. You can't beat the taskbar."

Of course, although the Start button is gone, it's not forgotten. In fact it's replaced by a hot corner in the lower left of the screen, and also complemented by another in the bottom right which offers up more menus, too. Whether that will appease every Start button fan is still uncertain—but come October, the loss is something they'll have to to face up to. [PC Pro]